bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

[Leo Famulari]

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On my Thinkpad x200s running GuixSD, the graphical GRUB menu is
scrambled and illegible. I've attached a photograph of the problem.

The grid of dots is stable, while the faint yellow horizontal lines
dance around. I can tell it's the GuixSD GRUB image, but it's scrambled.

I am able to press Enter to skip the GRUB timeout, and the system does
boot normally.

This is not a recent regression; I've been working around it with the
diff below for a few months now.

I don't know very much about computer graphics. Please let me know what
information I can provide.

diff --git a/gnu/system/grub.scm b/gnu/system/grub.scm
index ead48f0..61c799d 100644
--- a/gnu/system/grub.scm
+++ b/gnu/system/grub.scm
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ the store is.  SYSTEM must be the target system string---e.g.,
   insmod video_bochs
   insmod video_cirrus
   insmod gfxterm
-  terminal_output gfxterm
+  terminal_output console
 "
         ""))
 

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bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

[Chris Marusich]

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Hi Leo,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On my Thinkpad x200s running GuixSD, the graphical GRUB menu is
> scrambled and illegible. I've attached a photograph of the problem.

I also have an x200 running GuixSD (with Libreboot).  I do not
experience this issue; the GRUB menu looks correct to me.

Are you using Libreboot with the GRUB payload?  If so, what version of
Libreboot [1]?  What version of GuixSD?  If you are using recent
versions and the issue is still happening, I wonder if perhaps your
hardware is different from mine.

For comparison, this is some of my video info (information obtained
using the 'lspci' program):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I am using Guix version "20161116.06".  I am using Libreboot version
"r20160907".

[1] https://libreboot.org/docs/index.html#version

-- 
Chris

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bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

[Leo Famulari]

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On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 08:34:21AM -0800, Chris Marusich wrote:
> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:
> 
> > On my Thinkpad x200s running GuixSD, the graphical GRUB menu is
> > scrambled and illegible. I've attached a photograph of the problem.
> 
> I also have an x200 running GuixSD (with Libreboot).  I do not
> experience this issue; the GRUB menu looks correct to me.

I have an x200s, which is a slightly different machine.

> Are you using Libreboot with the GRUB payload?  If so, what version of
> Libreboot [1]?  What version of GuixSD?  If you are using recent
> versions and the issue is still happening, I wonder if perhaps your
> hardware is different from mine.

I'm using the BIOS that came with the computer when I bought it
second-hand; it appears to be from Lenovo. I don't know whether or not
the differences in our hardware would cause this issue. And like I said
before, this used to work for me.

> For comparison, this is some of my video info (information obtained
> using the 'lspci' program):
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
> 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I see the same:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)

> I am using Guix version "20161116.06".  I am using Libreboot version
> "r20160907".

I keep the system up to date, but it's not usually "vanilla" `guix
pull`. I normally reconfigure the system from a Git checkout, and
sometimes it has custom patches, or I use the core-updates branch, or
other things like that.

However, the problem is consistent, and it persists when I try using
Guix straight from `guix pull`, version 20161114.22.

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bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

[Chris Marusich]

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Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 08:34:21AM -0800, Chris Marusich wrote:
>> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:
>> 
>> > On my Thinkpad x200s running GuixSD, the graphical GRUB menu is
>> > scrambled and illegible. I've attached a photograph of the problem.
>> 
>> I also have an x200 running GuixSD (with Libreboot).  I do not
>> experience this issue; the GRUB menu looks correct to me.
>
> I have an x200s, which is a slightly different machine.

I misunderstood.  Thank you for the clarification.

>> Are you using Libreboot with the GRUB payload?  If so, what version of
>> Libreboot [1]?  What version of GuixSD?  If you are using recent
>> versions and the issue is still happening, I wonder if perhaps your
>> hardware is different from mine.
>
> I'm using the BIOS that came with the computer when I bought it
> second-hand; it appears to be from Lenovo. I don't know whether or not
> the differences in our hardware would cause this issue. And like I said
> before, this used to work for me.

I'm curious to know if I would encounter the same problem if I were
actually running the GRUB that Guix installed (to my drive), rather than
the GRUB which Libreboot installed (to my internal memory).  However, I
am not sure how to run the GRUB that Guix installed; I tried
chainloading it manually from Libreboot's GRUB, but I was unsuccessful.
Unfortunately, this means I can't currently reproduce your issue.

Can anyone else reproduce this issue?

-- 
Chris

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bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Leo,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:
> On my Thinkpad x200s running GuixSD, the graphical GRUB menu is
> scrambled and illegible. I've attached a photograph of the problem.
[...]
> This is not a recent regression; I've been working around it with the
> diff below for a few months now.

A few months ago we updated our grub from 2.00 to 2.02beta3, in commit
4c7260011e219eb3ebf5da976ab107dbd5997829, dated June 16.  Was that
roughly when this problem began?

If so, I suggest reverting that commit in your local tree, to see if
downgrading to grub 2.00 fixes the problem.

       Mark

bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

[Leo Famulari]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 01:54:02AM -0500, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Hi Leo,
> 
> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:
> > On my Thinkpad x200s running GuixSD, the graphical GRUB menu is
> > scrambled and illegible. I've attached a photograph of the problem.
> [...]
> > This is not a recent regression; I've been working around it with the
> > diff below for a few months now.
> 
> A few months ago we updated our grub from 2.00 to 2.02beta3, in commit
> 4c7260011e219eb3ebf5da976ab107dbd5997829, dated June 16.  Was that
> roughly when this problem began?
> 
> If so, I suggest reverting that commit in your local tree, to see if
> downgrading to grub 2.00 fixes the problem.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try this in a few days when I have physical
access to that machine again.

bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

[Leo Famulari]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 01:54:02AM -0500, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> A few months ago we updated our grub from 2.00 to 2.02beta3, in commit
> 4c7260011e219eb3ebf5da976ab107dbd5997829, dated June 16.  Was that
> roughly when this problem began?
> 
> If so, I suggest reverting that commit in your local tree, to see if
> downgrading to grub 2.00 fixes the problem.

I reverted the following commits ...

4c7260011e21 (gnu: grub: Update to 2.02~beta3.)
358db0041f09 (gnu: grub: Make dependency on mdadm explicit.)

... on top of 1cd1d8a7ea43 (offload: Call 'machine-load' only once per
machine.)

I had to revert the second commit since it depended on changes in the
first.

I reconfigured and rebooted, but this didn't fix the problem for me.

bug#24948: Illegible GRUB menu

[Leo Famulari]

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On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 04:54:43PM -0500, Leo Famulari wrote:
> On my Thinkpad x200s running GuixSD, the graphical GRUB menu is
> scrambled and illegible. I've attached a photograph of the problem.

This bug seems to affect only my machine.

Since it is possible to work around the issue by using a non-graphical
GRUB menu, I'm closing the bug :)

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

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